The .loreal Dot
Brand
SPECIAL
NOTE: The application for the .loreal TLD has been withdrawn.
If the
brand domains are judged to be successful, it is realistically likely
that another application will be made when a new round is offered in
a couple of years time.
L'Oréal
is a major global family of brands and business units holding 23 brands
in the beauty and luxury categories. Examples of its famous brands include
Helena Rubinstein, Garnier, Redken, Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani and
The Body Shop. It has close to 69,000 employees and retails in more
than 130 countries.
Brand protection
will be a paramount concern. L'Oréal plans to leverage its expertise
in all major distribution channels to create innovative spaces in the
.loreal TLD. The domains will be hierarchical and intuitive and form
part of a comprehensive and pioneering strategy. They will provide an
"online single-source identifying function".
A new namespace
for customers, investors and the general public will be created. The
company describes its new string as "the new L'Oréal family
of gTLDs".
...L'Oréal
has always aimed to offer the widest possible choice to consumers...
...an innovative digital strategy will lie at the epicenter of L'Oréal's
mission to reach two billion customers in the coming years. The .LOREAL
gTLD has the potential to be a central part of this strategy...
The Applicant
has a four stage rollout and review process planned.
1. Test
phase during which IT staff will check factors like seamless access,
security issues and interoperability. Planning for next steps.
2. Allocation
of various names for internal use. Evaluate strategies to move content
away from the "current patchwork" network of domains to the
new brand TLD. Initial evaluation of the possibility of extending registrations
to selected partners.
3. Possible
migration of L'Oréal content over to the brand TLD. Factors such
as the company's existing domain portfolio and an analysis of marketing
strategies will be carefully considered.
4. The
company will continue its assessment to expand the program. This will
be driven by its business strategies as described in its annual report
and investor filings.
L'Oréal
expects the total number of new domains to be less than 10,000 in the
first five years of operation. It expects that the impact of the brand
domains and changes to the domain name system will take around five
years to evolve and assess.
L'Oréal
content is currently offered across a wide range of traditional domain
extensions such as .fr, .co.uk, .eu, .com.au and .de. The
new string offers the opportunity to create short and memorable addresses
that will facilitate navigation to offerings, ad campaigns and public
interest content. This unified framework will benefit the general public.
L'Oréal
believes that the .LOREAL gTLD has potential to provide an innovative
virtual avenue to L'Oréal products that will deepen and broaden
the company's relationship with consumers...
...The
.LOREAL gTLD has the potential to serve as a cornerstone of this online
strategy.
L'Oréal
anticipates that the brand domains will eventually become a "specialty
subset" of ICANN's new TLD program. The .loreal string will protect
the company's identity, expand its marketing potential, provide a secure
channel for online offerings and build a consolidated intellectual property
platform.
The company
is growing very quickly in new markets and the .loreal TLD will accelerate
this process to build on its global brand recognition. 36.8% of cosmetics
sales are attributed to new regions such as Eastern Europe, Latin America
and Africa etc.
L'Oréal
will create a trusted e-commerce platform for secure access to shopping
and information. It would like to enjoy the same level of trust as the
.edu and .gov TLDs. The potential for counterfeit or infringing goods
and services will be minimized. Piracy, fraud, phishing and other malicious
activities will be prevented. It will be a verified ecosystem.
Privacy
and confidentiality will be protected. Also, a proactive strategy to
protect intellectual property will be undertaken.
...consumers
may benefit from a lower incidence of phishing and malware often associated
with mistypes of domain names in the .COM or other spaces that are
owned by cybersquatters, since consumers will be navigating to domain
names in the .LOREAL gTLD...
The company
foresees that the .loreal TLD may play "a large role in the company's
future online strategy". At a later stage, various advertising,
media outreach, in-store communications and email campaigns will be
planned.
 Geographic
Dot Brands
L'Oréal
has reviewed various relevant ICANN documents regarding the protection
of country and territory identifiers.
In view
of the sensitivity of governments to the use of geographical terms,
L'Oréal will initially restrict from registration the terms referred
to in Specification 5 of the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook.
In summary,
the reference lists are the ISO 3166-1 list, a UN Group of Experts name
manual and a UN Working Group list of standardized names.
The Applicant
points out that as a major global company offering products in more
than 130 countries under a variety of existing country code extensions
(such as .ca, .co.uk, .fr, .it, .ru and .com.au) geographical signifiers
are of great use in navigation.
This practical
value is of benefit to both the company and the general public.
In providing
content, sales, and services online, L'Oréal makes regular
use of Internet technology that allows users to quickly find local
content and stores. For example, on the Loreal.com corporate website,
users have the ability to search for L'Oréal headquarters in
many countries.
L'Oréal
believes that the use of country identifiers within the .loreal namespace
will be intuitive and beneficial to "direct navigation" internet
users. Geographical brand domains will also likely have a beneficial
impact on search engine results.
A logical
hierarchy of geographical domain names could replace its present "mix-and-match
approach" of names like LorealChina.com, Loreal.de and Nihon-Loreal.co.jp.
L'Oréal,
acting as a responsible global business, seeks to avoid business practices
that could potentially mislead consumers. L'Oréal believes,
however, that it is important to be able to use geographic identifiers
in a fair and non-misleading manner...
Hence,
in association with other new TLD applicants, L'Oréal looks forward
to exploring with the GAC a process to enable the release of initially
reserved country names. The company also intends to participate in any
future related ICANN policy discussions.
Possible .loreal
Brand Domains
Beauty.loreal
Cosmetics.loreal
Skincare.loreal
Lipstick.loreal
Advice.loreal
Luxury.loreal
Professionals.loreal
Maybelline.loreal
Redken.loreal
Biotherm.loreal
Notes
Brand
names mentioned on this site are registered trademarks or trademarks
of their respective corporations. This site claims no association
with or endorsement by any of these corporations and their marks are
mentioned only to illustrate opinion presented in the public interest.
All quotations
on this page are from the respective companies' official ICANN brand
TLD applications unless otherwise stated.
Many possible
theoretical dot brands are mentioned (in English). There are also countless
possibilities in other languages. This has significant potential value
for international navigation.
This site
is focused on reporting the strategic impact of the brand domains on
internet communication, competition and commerce, and some comment is
speculative.
It is not
a comprehensive overview of what some of the world's largest corporations
have chosen to reveal about their plans for the implementation of their
proprietary domain strings.
ICANN is
particularly concerned with the technical, financial, security and legal
issues associated with the new TLDs. These issues are beyond the scope
of this website.
For a comprehensive
overview of the brand domains and their impact on the web, refer to
ICANN's website and the individual applications (large parts of which
are publicly published).
If you
have a particular interest in an individual company, the public aspects
of their applications are available for download via these ICANN links:
You can also search a complete list of applicants there.
ICANN
new gTLD applications
ICANN
official website
|
